When I was a kid, one of my uncles taught me how to “whistle” a blade of grass. The length, width, and stage of growth of the grass are paramount. The blade of grass needs to be a bit longer than the length of your thumb. Why? Because you’re going to press it between both thumbs while cupping your hands and then blow across the blade into your cupped palms. (You may have to use your left or right index finger to help hold and stretch the blade, aka “reed,” taunt enough to vibrate.) The first time I was successful, I thought I was the cat’s meow. None of the other kids I knew could do this. And, of course, this elevated my uncle to stardom. When you’re successful as well, and it does take practice, you’ll be surprised by the number of unusual sounds you can make. You’ll produce everything from a duck call to a shrill and loud whistle. There are lots of videos out there and even a Ranger Rick™ site that explains how to free your inner kid to whistle grass. I’m sure there are probably contests and people who can play a tune courtesy of grass blades.
But the purpose of mentioning here (other than to encourage you to have fun with it), is to illustrate the benefit and joy of surprising sounds. In your writing, this might include using techniques to rhyme or alliterate. Or it might consist of such a vivid description of sounds that the reader is completely shocked and surprised. Here’s part of a phrase from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: “Music began clanging against the rocks up here. It is a motor horn down in the street, he muttered; but up here it cannoned from rock to rock, divided, met in shocks of sounds which rose in smooth columns (that music should be visible was a discovery) and became an anthem, an anthem twined round now by a shepherd boy’s piping.”
Oh, that we all could write like that :-) But what we can do is play with sound, writing about sounds characters make, sounds in the background, sounds that advance the plot and leave the reader anxious about daring to turn the page. Or, perhaps you’ll decide to write a poem about a summer day when you sat all by yourself, in the midst of a field, and learned how to whistle a blade of grass.
Photo credit: Kahika via Unsplash
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